The wholesale and retail florist industry is interested in presenting their products in attractively decorated packages. Plants and floral arrangements are often adorned with ribbons and bows and set into attractive outer shells lined with colorfully decorated paper. Thus, there is a need for a bow and ribbon which can be easily attached to a plant or floral arrangement. Unlike the packaging industry, the ribbon cannot be used to tie up the package with the bow attached by an adhesive. The bow must be attached without interfering with or damaging the floral arrangement or plant.
Since the wholesale and retail florist industry has expanded to a variety of stores such as supermarkets, local variety stores, etc., the need for attractive, easily attached bows has increased. Thus, it would be advantageous to be able to produce easily attached bows for the wholesale and retail florist industry in large quantities.
There already exists various machines and methods for manufacturing prefabricated bows. Some of these devices are in the form of machines having various mechanical arms and fingers which form loops, from which completed bows are then removed in a preformed condition. However, these methods of manufacturing bows are complicated, cumbersome and expensive and the bow produced are unsuitable for attachment to plants and floral arrangements.
To solve this problem, a bow forming machine has been designed having a pair of ribbons with a drawstring centrally disposed along the length of the ribbons with the ribbons secured by an adhesive at intervals on either side of the strap. The bonds are perpendicular to the edges of the ribbon so that a flat bow is formed similar in shape to the bow tie. To form a bow having many random loops, notches are made in the edges of the ribbons at selected intervals. The disadvantage of this device is that the bows are either a flat plurality of straight loops, such as the bow tie shape, or have a plurality of bunched loops forming an aesthetically unappealing pom pom shape. The machine for manufacturing these prefabricated bows is also generally complicated. Further, the bows formed by this method are directed toward the packaging industry and are not suitable for attachment to plants or floral arrangements.
It is therefore one object of the present invention to provide a prefabricated bow in which the bow is automatically formed into a plurality of spaced, equal sized loops, suitable for attachment to plants and floral arrangements.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a prefabricated bow comprised of a pair of ribbons having bonded seams at angles to the edges of the pair of ribbons.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a bow forming machine in the form of a bench and press which provides heat welds to bond the ribbons at a plurality of preselected intervals and angles.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a bow forming machine having means to supply ribbon, cut the ribbon and provide bonded seams at preselected intervals by heat melting spots in a line at predetermined angles and intervals along the pair of ribbons.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a prefabricated bow including means for easily attaching the bow to a plant or floral arrangement.